Translated material
Albanian Groundhog Day
Belgrade and Pristina are not ready for compromise
The final round of negotiations between the delegations of the Serbian government and the leadership of the Kosovo region began yesterday in Vienna. They discuss the plan of the UN Secretary General's special envoy Martti Ahtisaari (pictured) to determine the final status of the region. Discussions are expected to continue intermittently until March 2.On March 10, Mr. Ahtisaari intends to seat the Serbian and Kosovo presidents, Boris Tadic and Fatmir Sejdiu, at the same table. They must either sign the draft final document or state that there is no compromise option. And then Martti Ahtisaari will refer the issue to the UN Security Council for consideration.
So far everything portends just such a denouement. Delegations of Serbs and Albanians who arrived in Vienna yesterday exchanged mutually exclusive statements. A member of the Kosovo Albanian delegation, Veton Surroi, repeated that the regional authorities proceed from the fact that “Kosovo must become independent.”
“It's like Groundhog Day. I wake up in the morning and see all the same Belgrade proposals,” Mr. Surroi complained yesterday. He believes that the Serbian side, instead of discussing the “Ahtisaari plan,” is “trying to open a completely new negotiation process.” In response, Serbian government spokesman Slobodan Samardzic stressed that Belgrade does not reject the plan as such, but only those proposals that “violate the territorial integrity of Serbia.” In such a situation, it is difficult to count on achieving at least some kind of compromise .
“Negotiations in Vienna are needed not so much by the representatives of Belgrade and Pristina, but by Martti Ahtisaari himself,” says Deputy Director of the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Doctor of Historical Sciences Andrei Shemyakin. In a conversation with Vremya Novostey, he recalled that “the new constitution of Serbia, adopted on the basis of a referendum in October 2006, and the Assembly (Parliament) resolution of February 14 clearly define Kosovo as an integral part of the territory of Serbia.” Under these conditions, “it is difficult to imagine that the Serbian delegation will find a common language in Vienna with the Albanians, who do not want to hear about anything other than the independence of Kosovo,” the expert noted.
As for the special envoy of the UN Secretary General himself, “it is important for him to work out his own mandate, formally go through all the procedures of the negotiation process and then report to the UN Security Council that, despite all his efforts, a negotiated solution turned out to be unattainable; this will allow him to “wash his hands of it” and shift all responsibility for making the final decision on Kosovo’s status to the UN Security Council,” predicts VN’s interlocutor.
Russia has veto power in the UN Security Council and is theoretically capable of blocking the adoption of a resolution on the independent status of Kosovo. As Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov emphasized yesterday, “a solution on Kosovo must be negotiated and must be the subject of agreement by both parties.” Russia believes that before discussing the final status of the region, it is necessary to achieve a compromise between Belgrade and Pristina, and at the same time stabilize the situation in the region itself: create conditions for the return of hundreds of thousands of non-Albanian refugees, disarm illegal armed Albanian groups, and ensure the civil rights of local Serbs.
The recent explosion in Pristina near the location of the UN office confirmed the validity of the Russian approach. The Russian Foreign Ministry assessed the terrorist attack as “evidence of the ongoing line of radical forces to escalate tensions in Kosovo and disrupt the political process of determining its status.” As for the Kosovo authorities, they intend to achieve independence, regardless of Russia’s position. “The recent statement by Kosovo Prime Minister Agim Ceku that Russia’s position will not become an insurmountable obstacle for the Albanians suggests that they have calculated the situation two or three moves ahead. If the Vienna negotiations do not lead to any results, the issue will be referred to the Security Council, and Russia may indeed vote against Kosovo's independence. Then we should expect the Kosovo Albanians to declare this independence unilaterally,” Mr. Shemyakin is confident.